SCENE I.-The camp of the British forces, near Dover. Enter, with drums and colours, Edmund, Regan, Officers, Soldiers, and others. Edm. Know of the duke, if his last purpose hold; Or, whether since he is advis'd by aught To change the course: He's full of alteration, And self-reproving :-bring his constant pleasure.3 [To an officer, who goes out. Reg. Our sister's man is certainly miscarried. Edm. 'Tis to be doubted, madam. Reg. Now, sweet lord, You know the goodness I intend upon you: Tell me, but truly,-but then speak the truth, Do you not love my sister? Edm. In honour'd love. [Aside. Alb. Our very loving sister, well be met.— Sir, this I hear, The king is come to his daughter, With others, whom the rigour of our state Forc'd to cry out. Where I could not be honest, I never yet was valiant: for this business, It touches us as France invades our land, Not bolds the king; with others, whom, I fear, Most just and heavy causes make oppose.7 Edm. Sir, you speak nobly. Reg. Why is this reason'd? Gon. Combine together 'gainst the enemy: For these domestic and particular broils Reg. 'Tis most convenient; pray you, go with us. Gon. O, ho, I know the riddle: [Aside.] I will go. As they are going out, enter Edgar, disguised. Edg. If e'er your grace had speech with man so poor, Hear me one word. Alb. I'll overtake you.-Speak. [Exeunt Edmund, Regan, Goneril, Officers, Soldiers, and Attendants. 1 Edg. Before you fight the battle, ope this letter. If you have victory, let the trumpet sound For him that brought it: wretched though I seem, I can produce a champion, that will prove What is avouched there: If you miscarry, Your business of the world hath so an end, And machination ceases,8 Fortune love you! Alb. Stay till I have read the letter. Edg. I was forbid it. When time shall serve, let but the herald cry, And I'll appear again. Exit. Alb. Why, fare thee well; I will o'erlook thy paper. Re-enter Edmund. Edm. The enemy's in view, draw up your powers. Here is the guess of their true strength and forces By diligent discovery ;-but your haste Is now urg'd on you. Alb. We will greet the time.9 [Exit. Edm. To both these sisters have I sworn my love; Each jealous of the other, as the stung Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take? Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy'd, If both remain alive: To take the widow, Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril; And hardly shall I carry out my side,10 Her husband being alive. Now then, we'll use His countenance for the battle; which being done, Let her, who would be rid of him, devise His speedy taking off. As for the mercy Which he intends to Lear, and to Cordelia,The battle done, and they within our power, Shall never see his pardon: for my state Stands on me to defend, not to debate. [Exit. SCENE II-A field between the two camps. Alarum within. Enter, with drum and colours, Lear, Cordelia, and their forces; and exeunt. Enter Edgar and Gloster. Edg. Here, father, take the shadow of this tree For your good host; pray that the right may thrive. If ever I return to you again, I'll bring you comfort. Glo. Grace go with you, sir! [Exit Edgar Alarums; afterwards a retreat. Re-enter Edgar. Edg. Away, old man, give me thy hand, away; King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta'en: Give me thy hand, come on. Glo. No further, sir; a man may rot even here. Edg. What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure Their going hence, even as their coming hither: And that's true too. [Exeunt. (8) i. e. All designs against your life will have (9) Be ready to meet the occasion. an end. (3) His settled resolution. (4) Forbidden. (7) Opposition. (10) i. e. Make my party good. (11) i. e. To be ready prepared, is all. SCENE III.-The British camp near Dover. Enter, in conquest, with drum and colours, Ed mund; Lear and Cordelia, as prisoners; Officers, Soldiers, &c. Edm. Some officers take them away: good guard: Until their greater pleasures first be known That are to censure them. Cor. We two alone will sing like birds i'the cage: Edm. Take them away. Lear. Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee? He, that parts us, shall bring a brand from heaven, And fire us hence, like foxes. Wipe thine eyes; The goujeers? shall devour them, flesh and fell,3 Ere they shall make us weep: we'll see them starve Come. first. [Exe. Lear and Cor. guarded. Edm. Come hither, captain; hark. Take thou this note; [Giving a paper.] go, follow them to prison: One step I have advanc'd thee; if thou dost Offi. I'll do't, my lord. Edm. About it; and write happy, when thou hast done. Mark,-I say, instantly; and carry it so, Offi. I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats; If it be man's work, I will do it. [Exit Officer. Flourish. Enter Albany, Goneril, Regan, Officers, and Attendants. Alb. Sir, you have shown to-day your valiant strain, On capital treason; and, in thy arrest, This gilded serpent: [Pointing to Gon.]--For your claim, fair sister, I bar it in the interest of my wife; 'Tis she is sub-contracted to this lord, An interlude! Gon. If none appear to prove upon thy person, Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less (6) Authority to act on his own judgment. (7) Alluding to the proverb: Love being jea ous makes a good eye look a-squint. (3) The hindrance. Alb. A herald, ho! Edm. A herald, ho, a herald! Alb. Trust to thy single virtue; for thy soldiers, All levied in my name, have in my name Took their discharge. Reg. Gon. This is mere practice, Gloster : By the law of arms, thou wast not bound to answer This sickness grows upon me. Or with this paper shall I stop it:-Hold, sir :- Enter a Herald. Her. Again. Her. Again. [1 Trumpet. 2 Trumpet. [3 Trumpet. [Trumpet answers within. Enter Edgar, armed, preceded by a trumpet. Alb. Ask him his purposes, why he appears Upon this call o'the trumpet. Her. What are you? Your name, your quality? and why you answer This present summons? Edg. I come to cope withal. Edm. Himself;-What say'st thou to him? are Edm. In wisdom, I should ask thy name ;3 But, since thy outside looks so fair and warlike, And that thy tongue some 'say4 of breeding breathes, What safe and nicely I might well delay By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn: Back do I toss these treasons to thy head; With the hell-hated lie o'erwhelm thy heart; Which (for they yet glance by, and scarcely bruise,) This sword of mine shall give them instant way, Where they shall rest for ever.-Trumpets, speak. [Alarums. They fight. Edmund falls. Alb. O'save him, save him! [Gives the letter to Edmund. Gon. Say, if I do; the laws are mine, not thine: Who shall arraign me for't? Alb. Most monstrous! Know'st thou this paper? Gon. Ask me not what I know [Exit Goneril. Alb. Go after her: she's desperate; govern her. [To an Officer, who goes out. Edm. What you have charg'd me with, that have I done; And more, much more: the time will bring it out; Edg. Let's exchange charity. I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund; The dark and vicious place where thee he got, Edm. Edg. I know it well. Alb. Worthy prince, Where have you hid yourself? How have you known the miseries of your father? Edg. By nursing them, my lord.--ListR a brief tale; And, when 'tis told, O, that my heart would burst!— Edm. This speech of yours hath mov'd me, And shall, perchance, do good: but speak you on; You look as you had something more to say. Alb. If there be more, more woful, hold it in ; For I am almost ready to dissolve, Hearing of this. Edg. This would have seem'd a period To such as love not sorrow; but another, To amplify too much, would make much more, And top extremity. (4) Sample. Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man, guise Follow'd his enemy king, and did him service Edg. Kent, sir, the banish'd Kent; who in dis-I know when one is dead, and when one lives; Enter a Gentleman hastily, with a bloody knife. Gent. Help! help! O help! Alb. What kind of help? Speak, man. Edg. What means that bloody knife? 'Tis hot, it smokes ; Who, man? speak. It came even from the heart of- Edm. I was contracted to them both; all three Alb. Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead! This judgment of the heavens, that makes us tremble, Touches us not with pity. Enter Kent. [Exit Gentleman. Kent. O my good master! [Kneeling. Lear. Pr'ythee, away. Edg. "Tis noble Kent, your friend. Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all! I might have sav'd her; now she's gone for ever!- Did I not, fellow? The time will not allow the compliment, Which very manners urges. Kent. I am come KING LEAR. With boot, and such addition2 as your honours Lear. And my poor fool3 is hang'd! No, no, no Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, 389 nicely discriminates, and so minutely describes the My learned friend Mr. Warton,5 who has in The And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no and shocking, and that the intervention of Edmund more, Never, never, never, never, never! Pray you, undo this button: Thank you, sir. destroys the simplicity of the story. These objections may, I think, be answered by repeating, that Do you see this? Look on her,-look,-her lips,-which the poet has added little, having only drawn the cruelty of the daughters is an historical fact, to Look there, look there!Edg. [He dies. it into a series by dialogue and action. But 1 am He faints!-My lord, my lord,- not able to apologize with equal plausibility for the Kent. Break, heart; I pr'ythee, break! Edg. extrusion of Gloster's eyes, which seems an act too Look up, my lord. horrid to be endured in dramatic exhibition, and Kent. Vex not his ghost:-O, let him pass !4 he such as must always compel the mind to relieve its hates him, distress by incredulity. Yet let it be remembered that our author well knew what would please the audience for which he wrote. That would upon the rack of this tough world Alb. Bear them from hence.-Our present busi ness Is general wo. Friends of my soul, you twain Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. [Exeunt, with a dead march. The tragedy of Lear is deservedly celebrated among the dramas of Shakspeare. There is perhaps no play which keeps the attention so strongly fixed; which so much agitates our passions, and interests our curiosity. The artful involutions of distinct in-carry, may doubtless be good, because it is a just terests, the striking oppositions of contrary charac- but since all reasonable beings naturally love justers, the sudden changes of fortune, and the quicktice, I cannot easily be persuaded, that the obserrepresentation of the common events of human life: succession of events, fill the mind with a perpetual vation of justice makes a play worse; or that, if tumult of indignation, pity, and hope. There is no other excellencies are equal, the audience will not scene which does not contribute to the aggravation always rise better pleased from the final triumph of the distress or conduct to the action, and scarce of persecuted virtue. a line which does not conduce to the progress of the scene. So powerful is the current of the poet's imagination, that the mind, which once ventures within it, is hurried irresistibly along. delia, from the time of Tate, has always retired with victory and felicity. And, if my sensations In the present case the public has decided. CorOn the seeming improbability of Lear's conduct, relate, I was many years ago so shocked by Corit may be observed, that he is represented accord-delia's death, that I know not whether I ever encould add any thing to the general suffrage, I might ing to histories at that time vulgarly received as true. And, perhaps, if we turn our thoughts upon the barbarity and ignorance of the age to which this story is referred, it will appear not so unlikely as while we estimate Lear's manners by our own. Such preference of one daughter to another, or resignation of dominion on such conditions, would be yet credible, if told of a petty prince of Guinea or Madagascar. Shakspeare, indeed, by the mention of his earls and dukes, has given us the idea of his daughters is the primary source of his disof times more civilized, and of life regulated by softer manners; and the truth is, that though he so (1) Benefit. (2) Titles. (3) Poor fool in the time of Shakspeare, was an expression of endearment. concerning this play. It is disputed whether the as a secondary and subordinate evil. He ob- (4) Die. (5) Dr. Joseph Warton. |